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Using the talk function in iVocalize is easy as pressing a key on your keyboard or a click of the mouse.

By default, iVocalize is configured to use the Ctrl key as the Press and Hold talk key. When you press (and hold) the talk key, you are placed into the Talk Queue. If you are first in the queue, then you hear a chirp as your microphone goes live, and the talk bubble appears beside your name.

You can also click the microphone button to latch the talk function instead of holding down the talk key:

You can configure the press and hold talk key by pulling down the File menu as shown here:

Press and hold key selection options are as follows:

Control – either the right or left Ctrl key will function

Left Ctrl – only the Left Ctrl key

Right Ctrl – only the Right Ctrl key

Shift – either the right or left Shift key will function

Left Shift – only the Left Shift key

Right Shift – only the Right Shift key

Disabled – the press and hold key is disabled. You must click the microphone button to speak.

Press and hold scope selection options are as follows:

Global – the press and hold key will function no matter what application is in the foreground.

Application Only – the press and hold key will function only when iVocalize is the foreground application. This is useful if you inadvertently trigger the talk function while multi-tasking in other applications.

Video is sent only for the person currently speaking, while their microphone is actually live.

iVocalize can utilize any properly installed webcam that is recognized by Windows, or by OS X when running on the Mac.

If your webcam does not function as expected, verify that it works properly in other applications, such as one of the many instant message programs, and be sure that your webcam is not already in use by another application. To resolve problems with your webcam, close out any running software prior to launching iVocalize since other software may already have your webcam locked for exclusive use. In some cases it may help to restart your system.

Most webcams incorporate a built-in microphone that becomes your system’s default microphone as soon as the webcam is plugged in. To change your system’s default microphone, open the “Sounds and Audio Devices” applet in your Windows Control Panel, and select your preferred microphone. On the Mac, open System Prefernces and select Sound. iVocalize must be restarted before it will use your new default microphone.

The text chat feature can be customized on a per-user basis via the File->Text Messaging menu:

The following settings are present on the Text Messaging menu:

Timestamp Messages – display the time of receipt with each text message

Show Colors – display messages using the color selected by the author. Some message authors use colors that are difficult to see. Turning this option off will default to the system colors for display of text.

Show Emoticons – Display emoticons graphics, or display as text only.

Use Tabs for Private Messages – When on, private conversations are in separate windows. When off, private conversations are shown in the main window with a (private) designator.

Show Enter and Leave Messages – display a message each time someone enters or leaves the room

The text log, showing past conversations, can be displayed by selectin Show Text Log from the Browser menu:

Selecting the Show Text Log menu option brings up the text log search window. The search window allows you to select the entire text log for display, or to search for entries containing a specific keyword:

After clicking OK in text log search window, the text log is displayed in the browser:

Note: The text log is available via the embedded browser while logged into the room. It is not available via external browsers from outside the room.

Administrators have the ability to clear the text log by selecting Clear Text Log from the Moderator menu, and any moderator can enable Moderated Text Chat from the Moderator menu:

When Moderated Text Chat is turned on, public messages from non-moderators are not immediately posted to the room. Instead, the messages are first sent to moderators for approval. The moderator has the ability to Accept or Reject the message by clicking the appropriate button. In addition, the moderator can reject the message and mute the sender by clicking on the Mute button.

After a moderator takes action, the moderated message display changes to show which moderator took action, and the result of their action:

If the message was approved, it will be displayed to the room. If the message was rejected, room participants will not see the message, and the message sender will receive no acknowledgment.

The Participants Display of iVocalize shows the names of people who are logged in to the conference room.

Names are arranged alphabetically, with moderators appearing in bold type. Icons appear next to the names to indicate the status of the participant, and tool tips appear when the mouse hovers over a participant’s name.

When a participant is speaking, a blue bubble appears to the left of their name, and they move to the top of the participants list:

When one participant is speaking, and others are waiting to speak, those waiting to speak are moved up in the list so that they appear underneath the one who is currently speaking. Anyone waiting to speak also has a blue bubble with their position in line shown. Those waiting to speak are said to be In the Queue.

When a participant is typing a message using the integrated Text Chat feature, a Typing icon appears to the left of the participant’s name:

When a participant is recording the session with the iVocalize Recording feature, a yellow Recording icon appears to the left of the participant’s name:

When a participant is text-muted, a No-Typing icon appears to indicate that this person cannot send text messages:

When a participant is audio-muted, a talk bubble with a line through it appears to indicate that this person cannot speak:

When a participant is both audio-muted and text-muted, a circle-m icon appears to indicate that this person can neither speak nor send text messages:

By right clicking on any participant in the display, a menu of options appears. Here, Alice, who is an administrator, has opened a context menu on Charlie, who is currently speaking:

The Presentation Creation and Recording feature of iVocalize is very powerful, yet simple to use.

iVocalize records all voice, video, public text messages, co-browsing slides, whiteboard slides, screencasts and whiteboard annotations. Recorded presentations may be placed on your website and viewed on demand by your visitors.

iVocalize presentations can be fully experienced on any system running Flash Player version 9 or later. Supported browsers include Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer.

Turn on recording

Pull down the File menu and select Record Presentation, or just press Alt+R

Select the destination folder

Enter a folder name in which to save your recording, e.g. SalesMeetingDecember2005, or just accept the default folder name with date and time:

Recording in Progress

While recording is in progress all audio, video, public text messages, browser navigations and whiteboard events will be recorded. Note the letter R in a yellow circle beside Alice’s name, indicating that she is recording:

Also note that the status bar shows Recording

Timing is Everything!

Timing of the playback is controlled by the audio portion of the recording. This means that if 5 seconds of audio was recorded between two slides, then the playback will have a 5 second delay between the slides. However, if no audio is recorded between the changing of slides, then playback of those slides will happen at the same time, with the result that only the last slide will appear. Therefore, it is necessary to record some audio between consecutive slides to establish the delay.

Stop Recording

Notice that you may Pause Recording or Resume Recording at any time by tapping Alt+P.When the presentation has ended, turn off recording by pulling down the File menu, and again selecting Record Presentation, or simply tap Alt+R.

Recording Complete (Windows)

Recording Complete (Mac)

Every recorded presentation consists of several files including a generated web page, compressed audio / video, a flash player applet, and image files from the presentation. The name of the folder changes depending on the name you provided when recording was initiated, however, the individual files contained in the recording always have the same names:

index.htm : web page used to start playback

player.swf : Flash player applet

presentation.flv: Flash audio/video (Windows only)

presentation.mp3 : MP3 audio (Windows only)

presentation.mov: QuickTime audio/video (Mac only)

presentation.xml : data file containing text chat, captions, etc.

swfobject.js – JavaScript helper file used by index.htm

img : folder containing images, flash slides and screencast files

Replay

To begin playback, simply open the index.htm file in your browser. For best results, we recommend the latest version of the FireFox web browser and Flash Player.

Flash player 9 or later is required to play back a presentation. If the presentation player does not appear as shown above, visit http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ and make sure that you have the latest version of the Flash plugin.

Internet Explorer security restrictions may prevent the presentation from loading from your hard drive. In such cases, click on the IE InfoBar (the yellow bar at the top of the Internet Explorer window) and allow the content to load, or upload the presentation to a website. For best results, we recommend Mozilla FireFox as your web browser for playing presentations.

Additional security restrictions imposed by the Flash Player may prevent web pages from loading properly when a presentation is played back from your hard drive. In such cases, upload the presentation to a website, and begin playback from the Internet.

Upload

You may now upload the completed presentation to your website. When uploading recordings to the web, upload the entire presentation folder, including all files. For example, if you upload a folder called SalesMeeting to your website, you can begin playback by accessing the URL:http://www.yoursite.com/SalesMeeting/

Playback from your website requires that your web server is properly configured to serve up FLV and MOV files. Some Windows based web servers will not serve FLV files until a MIME type mapping is added to the server’s configuration. For more information on configuring IIS to properly serve FLV files, see this technical note from Adobe: http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_19439